Striking Israel with a rocket barrage from the battered Gaza Strip, Hamas once again invites war with Israel, but, more importantly, all the international publicity that comes with it. When Hamas runs out of cash to pay civil servants in the Gaza Strip, territory they seized June 14, 2007 from the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, they usually go to war with Israel. Once the conflict concludes, Hamas pleads with the oil-rich Gulf States to donate billions to help rebuild Gaza, only to watch Hamas spend most of the donated cash on more rockets and tunnel building. Escalating rocket attacks and Israeli targeted bombings of Hamas infrastructure has become the norm, with Hamas fighting three wars with Israel since seizing power. Gulf states have grown wary of continuing to fund Hamas, only to watch the cash go up in smoke when Hamas runs out of resources.
Hamas complains that an Israeli blockade against Gaza has left the former Egyptian seaside territory in shambles, pretending that only Israel, not Egypt, imposes such a blockade. But with Hamas closely allied with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, seeking to topple the military regime of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt also maintains a tight blockade on Gaza. If there’s anything Israel and Egypt agree on, it’s that Hamas is a radical Islamist regime, committed to toppling Israel and Egypt. While the Arab League meets regularly in Cairo, frequently denouncing Israel, it recognizes the fact that Egypt’s Gaza border cannot be used as arms-smuggling point. El-Sisi has enough problems dealing with Egypt’s struggling economy, to spend resources battling a Hamas-backed Muslim Brotherhood insurgency. Gaza’s Hamas leaders, lead by 56-year-old Ismail Haniyeh, want el-Sisi out.
When Hamas fought its last war with Israel July 6, 2014 to Aug. 26, 2014, it lost 2,310 militants, wounding thousands of civilians and causing some $6 billion in infrastructure damage. Hamas’s Iz ad-Din al-Qassam brigades shot thousands of rockets into Israel inflicting 67 Israeli casualties with minimal property loss. Pushing for a new war, Haniyeh recently encouraged Gaza residents to crash through the Israeli border fence to reclaim land lost in the 1948 War of Independence. Hamas routinely tells Gaza residents that they’re close to conquering Israel, when the battered Gaza territory only sees more death and destruction. Hamas thinks it has Arab backing for its aggression with Israel, only to watch the oil-rich Gulf State grow more skeptical of its constant battles with Israel. Haniyeh believes he scores PR points with Arab states periodically battling Israel.
When President Donald Trump decided to cancel former President Barack Obama’s July 15, 2015 Iranian Nuke Deal and re-impose harsh economic sanctions on Iran, it had much to do with Iran supplying Hamas rockets. Since given $1.6 billion in cash and $150 billion in sanction’s relief, Iran has funneled more cash-and-weapons to Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia and funded a proxy war against Saudi Arabia arming Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Israel knows where Hamas and Hezbollah get their arums, watching Iran skirt every international law to get rockets into the Gaza Strip. Today’s 150 rocket barrage into Israel is directly linked to Iranian interference in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hamas wants to destroy Israel but lacks the resources to do anything other than make a small dent in Israel’s defenses. Israel responds to Hamas rocket fire with pinpoint F-14 strikes.
Today’s rocket barrage indicates that Gaza’s Yahya Sinwar has run out of cash to pay Gaza’s civil servants. Starting a new war with Israel promises to re-supply Gaza with cash from oil-rich Gulf States. Haniyeh and Sinwar know that the more rockets they fire the more destruction to the Gaza Strip, the more cash they can expect from the Gulf States Hamas’s “March of Return” turned out to be a colossal failure, prompting Hamas to ivdiscriminately fire rockets into Israel. Whatever truce the U.S. and Egypt tried to broker with Hamas, they know that more destruction to the Gaza Strip is needed to bring in Gulf State donor-cash. Throwing Molotov cocktails or floating incendiary kites across the Israeli border didn’t satisfy the three-month old “March of Return,” only to watch Gaza’s beleaguered population suffer more. Hamas isn’t concerned about Gaza residents, only about getting Gulf State cash.
However many women and children lose their lives from cross-border attacks, Hamas knows that it’s instant PR for the Palestinian cause. Highlighting civilian casualties on the nightly news helps the Palestinian cause, according to Hamas. Safely protected in the West Bank, 84-year-old Palestine Liberation [PLO] Chairman Mahmoud Abbas watches Hamas’s folly from afar. Unlike Hamas that can’t keep the lights on in Gaza, West Bank PLO enjoys full infrastructure for its residents. Abbas knows the consequences of war with Israel, preferring to let Hamas do the dirty work while the West Bank enjoys relative peace. Publicizing gruesome civilians deaths is the only way Hamas can score PR points, while watching Gaza’s battered infrastructure driven into the ground. Keeping Gaza’s residents in a desperate state justifies Hamas’s predictable destructive cycle.
